


Close Enough to Start a War

by Arbryna



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, F/F, One Shot, Roughness, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 21:06:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arbryna/pseuds/Arbryna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke and Isabela deal with the fallout of the events at the end of Act II.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close Enough to Start a War

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a wonderful anon on Tumblr who prompted "Hawke/Isabela, strike me down."

She's supposed to be resting.

Aveline left Marian's side only after securing a promise to stay in bed like a good patient for the few minutes it would take her to gather something remotely edible from the kitchen. That was nearly a quarter hour ago, though, and Marian's discovering that almost dying works up quite the appetite.

The stairs creak softly under her bare feet as she descends, gingerly even though there are no longer any injuries to aggravate. Her muscles are stiff, but the pain is gone, thanks to Anders and his tireless work; the only evidence of her life-or-death battle is a thin scar along the side of her abdomen that she refused to let him heal completely. She wants to remember this day, wants to remember what the fear in Isabela's eyes looked like when the Arishok's sword was hilt-deep in her belly. 

It's a wonder she even survived, she knows, but she never doubted that she would win. The Qunari are driven by duty—and the fiercest, most fervent duty cannot hold a candle to the mad devotion of love. 

Even as hopeless as that love may be. 

She's trying not to read too much into Isabela's return, trying not to think about what it means—trying not to let herself hope. She can't quite silence the tiny, idealistic voice in the back of her head that wonders if the wish she's been making for years has finally come true—if Isabela really did come back for her, if they can have their happy ending after all. 

The sound of muffled voices drags Marian off course, until she finds herself creeping down the hallway leading to the vault, and the entrance to the Darktown tunnels that she really should have had sealed off years ago. 

"If you think you can just waltz back in here after what you've done, you're not just a whore, you're stupid as well." 

Marian freezes mid-step. The ire in Aveline's voice is not lost on her, nor is the fact that there's only one person the guard-captain could possibly be talking to this way. Then Isabela laughs, that low seductive chuckle that she does so well, and Marian forgets how to breathe.

"Come now, Big Girl, you know I don't waltz. I prefer much more intimate styles of dance." 

The deflection is so natural, so very _Isabela_ , and Marian's chest swells with affection as she rounds the corner, unable to stop the forward momentum of her feet. The sight that greets her is a familiar one: Aveline and Isabela facing off, each sporting their own stubborn expression, the space between them thick with tension.

At the sound of her footsteps at the door, both women turn, and whatever response Aveline was about to come back with dies without voice. 

"Isabela." The name spills from Marian's lips in a rush, taking with it the breath she's been holding. She can't even try to fight the hopeful smile that tugs at the corners of her lips. She can hardly feel the floor beneath her feet, and she wonders if maybe she has some hidden magical talent after all—if she's stumbled across a flying spell powered not by blood magic, but by the furious fluttering of her heart. 

That confident smirk falters, and Isabela's gaze darts nervously away from her. A flash of movement catches Marian's eye—Isabela trying to hide something behind her back, but not quickly enough. Marian's heart sinks into molten lead in her stomach as she recognizes the object in the Isabela's hand; a cold certainty settles over her as she realizes what it means.

The silence that follows is tense and uncomfortable, and Aveline is the first to break under the pressure of it. "Hawke, you should be resting. I'll take care of this—"

"Go home, Aveline," Marian says, her gaze never wavering. Her voice is eerily calm, devoid of emotion, and she can see that it unsettles Isabela; it's clear in the way Isabela shifts awkwardly from foot to foot, the way her biceps flex as she keeps her hand tucked behind her.

Aveline tries again, placing a solid hand on her shoulder. "Hawke—"

"Leave." Marian's voice is firmer this time, edged with steel. She can feel a sort of chaos churning in her belly, and it takes all of her willpower to contain it. She hardly notices Aveline brush past her, can only faintly hear the distant echo of the front door opening and closing.

Isabela stubbornly avoids her gaze.

"It was a gift, you know," Marian says, unsure of whether she's referring to the bottle in Isabela's hand or the fight to the death that she barely survived. "No strings attached."

A dry, bitter laugh escapes Isabela's lips. There's no point in hiding it anymore, so she pulls the bottle back around to the front of her, staring intently at the tiny, intricate ship inside. Her fingertips trail over the glass, and Marian is momentarily transfixed by worn leather and dark, calloused fingers."Just because you can't see them, doesn't mean they're not there." 

"I never meant—" Marian stops, shakes her head. There's no sense in denying what they both know she's always wanted from Isabela, what she's always known she could never have. "It's still yours."

"I don't deserve it." Isabela steps closer to shove the bottle into Marian's hands, then backs away just as quickly. "I don't deserve any of it," she adds, arms crossed over her chest as her eyes remain stubbornly on the floor. "The faster you learn that the happier you'll be."

Marian tears her eyes away from Isabela, fixes them on the object in her hands. Her fingertips trail along the piece of parchment tied to the neck of the bottle. "You weren't even going to say goodbye, were you?" 

"Of course I was," Isabela scoffs. Marian knows if she were to look up, Isabela would be rolling her eyes. She can't bring herself to do it, though, not when there's something defensive in Isabela's voice, something dangerously close to the feelings she's tried to convince herself that Isabela could never have. She only catches a glimpse as Isabela gestures to the bottle, or more likely the note attached. "It's all in there. It was just easier this way—or it was going to be, until Lady Manhands went and spoiled it." 

It's Marian's turn to laugh, bitter and humorless. "Easier. Of course." She doesn't _get_ angry with Isabela—she's always patient, always understanding, always giving Isabela space so as not to scare her away. She's flaming sick of it. A kind of madness grips her, and she throws the bottle away from her, hears it shatter against the wall. Isabela jumps at the sudden violence of it, eyes wide, and Marian feels a dark satisfaction at finally being able to catch her off guard. "Forgive me for thinking I deserved a bit more than a scribbled note after I nearly died to save your life."

Isabela tears her gaze from the shards of splintered wood and broken glass, eyes flashing with indignant fury as she trains them on Marian. "I never asked you to do that."

"You didn't have to!" There's a lump growing in Marian's throat, and she swallows around it, holding tight to her anger to keep from dissolving into tears. "I love you, Isabela." The words come out almost as a curse, nowhere near the tender confession she's always imagined, and she watches how Isabela flinches at the sound of them. "You don't want to hear it, but it's true. I would do anything for you. I don't know why that's not enough."

Her voice breaks a little toward the end, and she curses herself for her weakness. If patience and understanding and love haven't convinced Isabela to stay by her side, whining certainly won't do it. 

It does something, though. Whatever restraint Isabela was clinging to cracks, falls away at the impassioned words. "That's just it, Hawke—it's too much! I warned you—I told you from the start that love wasn't for me." A rough fingertip presses hard into Marian's sternum, just above where her robe splits at the top. "You're the idiot who didn't listen." 

"I listened more closely than you think," Marian retorts, trying not to savor the feel of Isabela's finger on her skin. She will not be that desperate, clinging to whatever attention Isabela deigns to give her. Not anymore. "You can make all the excuses you want, but we both know you're just afraid. You say you don't do love, but I've felt it—I saw it tonight in your eyes when the Arishok nearly had me."

Those eyes are wild now, frantic with a fear Isabela would never admit to feeling. She's good, though, so very good at making her step backward look planned—at pretending that she's still in control, even when it's just the two of them and they both know better. Neither of them has ever been in control of this. "Whatever you think you saw, it wasn't love," she says with a derisive snort. "What you and I had was fun, sweet thing, but it's nothing I couldn't find in any port in Thedas." 

It might almost be easier to take if the words were true, but for all her skill swindling people at Wicked Grace, Isabela can be a surprisingly terrible liar when it comes to this sort of thing. She shifts uneasily on her feet, keeps her eyes fixed on the wreckage of the bottle to avoid eye contact, and Marian can see right through the words to the truth Isabela is terrified to admit: Isabela loves her. She's as sure of it now as she's ever been of anything, but it doesn't fill her with delirious joy the way she always thought it would. Instead, the despair gripping her stomach digs its claws in deeper, because she knows that it won't make a difference. If anything, it will make Isabela run faster. 

Tears sting at Marian's eyes, and her anger is the only thing keeping her from crumbling. She clings to it like a lifeline, lets it seep into her veins and fill her with strength. "If that's what you need to tell yourself, so you can run off with a clear conscience, then far be it from me to shatter your precious illusion."

Isabela's gaze snaps back to Marian, and indignation quickly turns to shock when she realizes her position. Marian wasn't even conscious of advancing, but she's managed to pin Isabela between herself and the wall. "Believe what you want," Isabela huffs, looking for all the world like a caged animal. "Just get out of my way." She takes a step forward, expecting Marian to move aside.

The way she always does. It's always about everyone else, never about what Marian wants. Well, not anymore. Marian holds her ground, enjoying the look of surprise on Isabela's face when she meets a solid body rather than an easy escape route.

"Make me," Marian says, shifting to more effectively block Isabela's retreat. She is drunk on adrenaline and mad desperation—she doesn't even know what she's trying to prove, what she hopes to gain from this battle of wills, but suddenly it's terribly important that she win. "If you want to leave so badly, if I truly mean so little to you, then prove it. Strike me down." 

"Don't be ridiculous," Isabela scoffs, and pushes forward again, more forcefully this time. 

The fragile band holding Marian together snaps at the contact, and she shoves back, hard. Isabela grunts as she hits the wall, eyes opening wide in shock. It's short-lived, however, eclipsed by the need to regain the upper hand. Quickly, before Marian can process the action, Isabela's arms swing up to knock Marian's hands from her shoulders. She's not fast enough ducking to one side to slip around Marian, though, and pays for it when Marian's fingers dig brutally into her upper arms to drag her back. 

Marian knows it's pointless. She can't make Isabela stay with force, any more than she can with earnest pleas, but she's desperate and more than a little crazed, and all she can think about is the fact that she nearly died tonight, and would do it all over again a hundred times if it only meant that Isabela wouldn't run off afterward. 

For a short time, Marian thinks she may stand a chance of winning whatever this is. She's got the element of surprise on her side—she's never lashed out like this before; even when they would spar, she was always careful not to actually hurt Isabela. It was, of course, an endless source of amusement for the pirate, who practiced the way she fought: hard, dirty, and always to win. 

Isabela is nothing if not adaptive, though, and somewhere in the midst of all the grappling and shoving and struggling she manages to swap their positions so that Marian is the one pinned, palms digging into her shoulders and a knee wedged firmly between her legs to prevent escape. 

The effect is as powerful as it is sudden, and Marian can't stop the gasp that escapes her lips, the heat that rushes downward to center on the place Isabela's thigh falls just short of pressing against. Her anger is not gone, merely electrified, sparking in her blood and charging the scant space between them with a different kind of tension. 

"Oh, sweet thing." It shouldn't turn Marian on, the way Isabela's lips curl into that signature smirk, the almost condescending way Isabela chuckles like she's just figured out what this is all about. It shouldn't turn her on, but she has to fight the urge to grind down against Isabela's thigh as that honeyed voice brushes over her ear. "If you wanted a farewell tumble, you could have just asked."

Marian wants to cry and scream and fight all at once, wants to rage at Isabela for making light of what's between them and what it all means. None of that will work, though, and she knows it, so she opts to shut Isabela up the only other way she can think of. With her shoulders pinned, her arms have limited range of motion, but she's able to reach far enough to grab onto the sides of Isabela's tunic and yank her close. 

It's rough and awkward, lips and teeth clashing, and Marian can taste blood—hers or Isabela's, she can't be sure and doesn't care. Just as she doesn't care that she's essentially proving Isabela right, letting her get away with thinking this is just about sex because it's more comfortable than admitting to anything deeper. She knows, too, that this won't work to keep a woman who was never truly hers to begin with, but she doesn't care about that, either. All she can bring herself to care about is that Isabela is here, and soon she will be gone, and if this is to be her last taste of the passion that flares between them, Marian is going to make it last as long as she can. 

The shift to more familiar territory seems to relax Isabela, and her hands slide from Marian's shoulders to the wall on either side of her head, pressing forward until their bodies are flush without ever breaking the kiss. Isabela's thigh surges up, and Marian gasps at the damp slide of her smallclothes against her sex. 

Isabela has never been one to waste time, but the way she tugs up the skirt of Marian's robe is almost too urgent, like she's as desperate for this connection as Marian is. Her fingers slip into Marian's smallclothes, then into Marian herself, the soft leather of her fingerless gloves sliding against Marian's clit, and Marian clings to Isabela's back, trying to take her deeper, pull her closer.

She'll never be close enough, but that doesn't stop Marian from trying. Her nails scrape along Isabela's shoulders, hard enough to leave behind raised welts and pull a pleasurable hiss from Isabela's tongue. Then that tongue is trailing down Marian's neck, teeth sinking into sensitive skin deep enough to leave a mark. Marian is glad for it, hopes it will last—she wants this proof of what they have, what they are to each other, when Isabela is gone and the marks are all she has. 

The tears that threatened earlier surge up again at the thought, and Marian fights them back, knowing that they will only drive Isabela away faster. She won't be weak, now—or at least won't let her weakness show. 

Even as she rocks wantonly against Isabela's hand, her own works its way between them, slides under Isabela's tunic to shove aside flimsy smallclothes. The velvet heat that surrounds her fingers is familiar and decadent, and she groans her appreciation into Isabela's neck as she adds another finger, then another, until only her thumb is left out to slam against Isabela's clit with each thrust. 

It's an awkward angle, and her wrist will surely protest the careless treatment later, but it's worth it to feel Isabela stretch around her, to know that Isabela will begin her journey away from Kirkwall—away from Marian—still sore from Marian's attentions. She can take it, Marian knows. She still remembers fitting wrist-deep in Isabela; the impossibly tight heat around her fist, the way Isabela hissed in a delicious combination of pleasure and pain as she slid all the way in. She wants to repeat the experience, wants to relive every moment they've ever shared, but that would take time, and time is something Marian doesn't have.

There will never be enough time, and even now Marian can feel herself nearing the edge, can feel the inevitable end of this encounter—the end of everything—crash over her as the anguish and desperation and love and pleasure all combine into one bright explosion of sensation. Something halfway between a sob and a moan tears from her throat, and she sags against the wall, pure stubbornness keeping her on her feet while she continues her own thrusts. 

Isabela's breath brushes quick and hot against her cheek, and Marian twists and curls her fingers, determined to feel Isabela shatter at her touch one last time. It doesn't take long for Isabela to come, loosing a low, impassioned groan as she collapses against Marian. 

As the adrenaline ebbs from her blood, the trembling of Marian's legs becomes too much to bear, and she slides down to the floor, leaning her head back against the wall. Her body thrums with the aftershocks of her orgasm even as despair swells in her throat. 

To her surprise, Isabela sinks down onto the floor next to her, shoulders and hips barely touching her own. She doesn't dare let herself hope that it means anything, but she won't turn down this opportunity to say all of the things she wants to say. 

"You're a good person, you know," Marian says softly, afraid that if she speaks too loud the illusion will shatter and Isabela will be gone. "You don't want to believe it, but that doesn't make it any less true."

"You're delirious," Isabela scoffs; her derision isn't as sharp as before. "You didn't hit your head during that little tussle, did you?"

"You came back, Isabela." Passion creeps into Marian's voice, and she turns to pin Isabela with her gaze. Without thinking, she reaches to grab Isabela's hand, squeezing it to punctuate her words. "You'd been after that sodding book for three years. You could have kept it, Kirkwall be damned and all the people in it, but you came back. Don't sell yourself short—you're the real Champion of Kirkwall, not me." 

That seems to stun Isabela into silence; Marian's sure she's not used to being praised for bravery or moral character. She doesn't pull her hand away, though, and Marian finds it harder to ignore the tiny, stubborn spark of hope in her chest. 

"I didn't do it for them," Isabela finally says after a long, pensive silence. "I did it for you. It was always about you."

She sighs, then, and gently tugs her hand away. Marian is too dazed by the confession to protest when Isabela pushes herself to her feet and adjusts her clothing. 

"You're still leaving." Marian figured as much, but she can't keep the edge of hurt from her voice. 

"It's better this way." Isabela doesn't look back at Marian, but she doesn't move forward, either. "Someday you'll thank me for it." 

Marian chuckles, dry and humorless but not as bitter as before, more resigned. "You'd have to be here for me to do that." 

Isabela looks back, then, meets Marian's gaze for an impossibly long moment. A brief look of longing flashes across her features before her expression shutters closed, lips curling into a more subdued version of her default arrogant smirk. She turns without a word and slips through the door, disappearing into the dank tunnels of Darktown.

Then it is only Marian, left alone with the wreckage of Isabela's gift, glass and wood shattered like the pieces of her heart. The parchment catches her eye; she wonders what the note says, but she won't read it, probably ever. It doesn't matter what it says—Isabela is gone, and there are no words that can soothe that ache. 

This time, when the tears press against her eyelids, Marian lets them come.

_end._


End file.
